Ken's Musings about Writing

If you're fortunate (?), you may be approached by a publisher to write a book. If you're a masochist or a raving lunatic, you may end up approaching publishers to print something you've written.

I fall into the former category, and below are some thoughts and notes I've collated from the lessons I learned from the process. Remember, this is all my personal opinion -- and also remember what you paid for it. :-)

The Contract

In order to write a book, the author and the publisher need to enter into a contractual agreement. Publishers are wise and powerful; authors (especially unpublished, unknown ones) are small and meek.

1. Copyright ownership: Who owns the copyright on the book, you or the publisher? What about publication on alternate media, such as the Web or audio books?
2. 'Competitive works': Read clauses like this very carefully -- will you be allowed to write for other publishers? On the same, similar, or different topics?
3. Options: Think carefully about options clauses, such as whether the publisher has dibs on your next book-length work. This can often apply even to wildly different topics (such as cooking and historical analysis). This can be nasty if you want to write another book later but had a bad experience with your publisher. It can also streamline things if your experience was good.
4. Advance: Advances against earnings can be a tricky topic; it all depends on how the contract is written. The best type of advance is non-refundable once the manuscript is delivered. That is, once you've turned in the last of the manuscript, the advance is yours to keep even if the book doesn't sell a single copy. Some contracts may permit the publisher to reclaim any unearned advance from you if the book doesn't do well, though -- beware of that. Try to get the first kind; the advance is supposed to pay your expenses and for your time while you're busy writing. See the sections on royalties and money issues.
5. Free Copies: Make sure you get at least 20 free 'author's copies;' you'll be surprised by the number of people to whom you'll want to give them. (Or will want you to give one to them.)
6. Discount: Make sure you have a good (at least 40% or 50%) discount on any copies you buy from the publisher after using up your free ones.
7. Production Charges: Beware of being charged for production costs, such as indexing at US$1.50 a page. Negociate such down as low as you can; if there are such charges, accept an advance to meet (but not exceed) them. You'll still be in the black very quickly after publication. (See advances.)
8. Royalties: These are your share of the profits from sales of the book. If you're writing it in order to make money, you're going to want to pay a lot of attention to this section. Things to consider include how often they get paid to you, the float (how much time passes between the publisher getting the profit and you getting your share), subsidiary royalties (such as your share on translated editions, online renditions, and so on), and royalties on discounted sales. With more and more books showing up in online form, with the concomitant lower production overhead, a better royalty rate might be appropriate for online copies. See the sections on advances and money issues.
9. Termination: Pay attention to what the contract says will happen if it's terminated. Different clauses are likely to take effect depending upon whether the book is completed or not, or whether it's still in print, at the time the termination becomes effective. The copyright may remain with the publisher, for instance, which would prevent you from shopping the book around to another publisher for reprinting. Or perhaps the contract gives you the opportunity to purchase any unsold stock at a ridiculous price. The contract is probably going to run out sooner or later, so consider the best and worst cases that could obtain when it does. The whole issue of what constitutes 'out of print' is a moot one these days, with more and more books coming available online. Pay some attention to this definition, since you're still bound by the terms of the contract until it terminates; it's possible that a single copy per month sold through a print-on-demand electronic outlet will keep the book 'in print' and the contract (negative aspects and all) in force.

Marketing

10. Teaser Blurbs: Demand to see and approve the blurb(s) the publisher will send to distributors and booksellers. This is almost the sole thing those worthies use to decide whether to take a flyer on a new book, so make sure it's accurate. With the number of new books coming out all the time, you only get one chance at a bookseller's shelves (unless you become a bookseller yourself), and that's based on this blurb. The publisher knows how to make it attractive, but it's up to you to make sure it's accurate. Make sure it doesn't say anything untrue about the book, its content, or you. This is also frequently what appears next to the book in online catalogues, so it's not just for the booksellers' eyes.
11. Shelving: Go to a couple of bookstores (physical ones and online ones) and take a look at where similar or related books are shelved, and the number of copies on hand. You want yours to be shelved wherever the subject is popular enough that they keep multiple copies of multiple books on the shelf. You don't want it shelved under a topic that won't be found by people looking for books on your subject. Find out from the bookstore what that particular shelf's 'category' is, and tell the publisher that's the shelving category/instructions they should give their distributors. Remember, you only get one chance at this, like the blurb. There are just too many new releases coming out all the time for booksellers to go back and revisit decisions already made.

Actually Writing the Thing

12. Schedule: Make sure the schedule is something with which you (and your family) can live. One hundred pages a month is a lot, for instance, if writing isn't your full-time occupation.
13. Copyediting: Almost everything you write will go through the hands of at least one copyeditor. Copyeditors are the people tasked with making your abstruse prose readable and grammatical, according to -- and this is important -- the policies of the publisher. Your copyeditor(s) will ask you for clarifications of unusual words, terms, or phrases, and will suggest sentence restructuring and paragraph reorganisation. Be kind to them, even if it seems as though they feel compelled to justify their existences by altering every line you write; theirs is a largely thankless task but a necessary one. If you can, try to get a copy of those 'policies' ahead of time; I wish I had, since my publisher's abhorrence of the word 'thing' drove me nuts.

Research and Credit

14. Reviewers: Your publisher will probably ask you to supply the names of some people to review what you write. Pick people who will be constructive, fair, and timely (and get their permission first before giving their names to the publisher!). Make sure that their expectations about the reward for the work aren't mis-set. Also make sure that the process for addressing mistakes is clear: should the reviewers send their comments directly to you? To your editor? Or what?
15. Giving Credit: You should be very faithful about giving credit to those from whom you gathered information or gleaned ideas. Many people will be glad to help for nothing, some will want at least a mention, and some will probably like to work out a deal whereby they get a free copy of the final book. Think about how you'd feel in their positions, and what they'd want, and act accordingly. You may want to request gratis copy recompense language in your contract.
16. Largesse: If these notes have been useful, be sure to send one of those free copies to me. :-)

Money Issues

Even if you're writing a book for some noble or altruistic cause, you're probably going to be at least a little bit interested in how much money you'll make. Your money comes from your advance and the royalties on sales. If you want to maximise your income, these two factors in the contract are the ones to negociate.

One of the main issues about your advance is whether it's an advance against completion or against future royalties. In other words, if the book doesn't so well or the publisher takes it out of print before the advance is earned out, do you get to keep the advance or do you have to pay back the unearned portion? I personally would prefer the former type of contract (the advance is supposed to cover your living expenses while you're writing, after all -- and you did the work and had those expenses even if the book tanks).

Here are some thoughts if your contract makes you liable for any unearned portion of the advance.

• Watch out for too-large advances. (Really.) You don't want to be the one that has to manage the money in an escrow-like way until it's entirely earned. If you get a US$20,000 advance on a book and only fifty copies sell.. well, that's a lot of scratch to come up with if the publisher declares the book a loss and wants the unearned portion back.
• If you can get by without an advance, I suggest doing so. Otherwise you're in hock to the publisher until the royalties pay it off. (An exception to this recommendation is if you are working on a revision or second-or-subsequent edition of a popular title with known -- and good -- sales figures.)
• The size of the publisher's advance is a measure of their faith in your ability to produce (as well as a carrot); if you can, take it as a 'vote of confidence' rather than taking the advance itself. That way you're in the black as soon as copies start getting sold.

The size of the advance and the royalty rate control how much money you're going to make from your writing. Take some time to do the math: Given a choice of an advance of US$10,000 and a deep-discount royalty rate of 4% versus an advance of US$5,000 and a deep-discount royalty rate of 8%, calculate how long it will be and how many copies must be sold before you get US$20,000. Presume that 80% of your sales will be at the greatest discounted rate, and see how things turn out.

A special note about 'online' books: A book that is wholly available in online form has a much lower publishing overhead than a paper one. Once it's online, the setup and 'printing' charges disappear. It might be appropriate for you to get a better royalty rate (possibly as much as 50%!) on book 'sales' of this type, since the publisher has microscopic overhead.

See the sections on advances and royalties.

Agents

One question you might want to consider asking yourself is: "Should I have an agent?" Established agents can make phenomenal differences in contract terms you get, and can reduce your stress level by running interference with your publisher and editor. They can also find you projects that might otherwise not have come your way. On the other hand, they take a cut of the profits.

Whether or not having an agent is desirable seems to be a very personal-opinion thing. I have seen numerous authors on both sides of the question. For what it's worth, I didn't have an agent when I wrote my first book -- but I have one now. Check the mailing list archives on the Studio B Web site for some discussions on the topic.

Conclusion

If you've never written a book before, it can be incredibly flattering to be asked to write one. I strongly recommend that you not be too eager to overlook things. Examine the publisher's first contract proposal, decide what you don't like (if anything), determine where your compromise points are -- and then stand firm. If they won't meet what you decided were your irreducible demands, tell 'em so and send 'em packing. Matters will just get worse otherwise. Make sure you're willing to do this, though; once you become published, there will be other opportunities -- but the first one is the hard one to get.

Look at it like buying a new vehicle. Publishers are very aware of Barnum's Theorem¹, so you should be too. Don't let yourself become a victim by looking for the best of it.